


being sad, child tested, mother approved

by frogbackpack



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caring Dean Winchester, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 01, maybe a lil bit of unhealthy eating habits, whos to say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 17:44:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20213755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogbackpack/pseuds/frogbackpack
Summary: thinks abt jess and just. :(





	being sad, child tested, mother approved

**Author's Note:**

> Ima be real w you chief, I’ve spent my entire time on ao3 not knowing what the fuck the gen category meant. It’s been so long since I’ve watched s1 so sorry if i got some shit wrong. My two brain cells are working very hard to bring you this subpar content.

“What’s all this?” Dean asks as he shuts the motel room door and tosses his jacket onto the closest bed. “You find us a case?”

“No,” is all Sam says as he barely looks up from his textbook. It’d been in his duffle the night he left for the hunt with Dean and he didn’t notice till they were already hours on the road. But now that he has it, he’ll study it like he used to, because maybe that’s the closest he’ll get to normalcy in a long time.

He knows this isn’t a good idea. That, Stanford, a shot at a regular, apple pie life, is in the past now. He has to focus on the present or he’ll end up making a mistake that gets someone killed. But it reminds him of when there’d be a test coming up and he and Jess would stay up to study till they couldn’t keep their eyes open, waking up cuddled on the couch with their schoolwork long forgotten.

Sometimes, before all the drugs and the mixing with the wrong crowd, Brady’d be there too, ready to tease the lovebirds when they woke. Fuck, Sam really misses that.

“What, is the college boy gettin’ ready for finals?” Dean chuckles lightly. Sam stays silent, but he can almost see the regret wash over Dean’s face the second he speaks. 

It’s been exactly a month since Jess and Dean knows how his brothers coping. He knows that he isn’t, instead burying himself in research, hunting. Anything that’ll act as a distraction. 

“That from Stanford?” Dean questions. He’s still harboring a slight grudge against Sam for ditching him and dad in the first place, but he’s trying not to let that show, especially not when Sam’s knee deep in mourning the loss of the woman he loved. 

“Yeah.” Sams response comes quiet, the sound of his pencil dancing along his notebook is louder. Dean’s noticed how awful Sam’s been doing this past month. Being on the road with someone doesn’t leave much up to the imagination. The kid hasn’t been sleeping, and on the rare occasion that he does, he wakes up a gasping mess from nightmares he hardly talks about.

He’s gotten skinnier, too. Says he ‘forgets’ to eat, but he and Dean both know that’s bullshit. 

“How’re you holdin’ up, kiddo?” Dean asks softly as he looks over Sam’s shoulder. 

“‘M not a kid, Dean.” 

“Right.” Wrong word choice. “How’re you holdin’ up, adult?” He walks across the small table and takes a seat across from Sam.

“Haha,” Sam scoffs. “Very funny. And I’m sure you can take a guess.”

He didn’t need to guess to know how Sam’s doing, because it’s probably the most obvious thing Dean’s ever seen. It feels like just yesterday he said laid down the no chick flick moments rule, but he doesn’t care about that anymore, not when Sam’s closing himself off about something so serious.

“You look like shit, dude,” Dean observes. “No offense.”

Sam actually laughs. “Thanks. I hadn’t realized.”

“Sammy, uh, if you ever wanna...” Dean starts, more than ready to be shut out. “talk. About anything. I’m all ears, you know that, right?”

Sighing, Sam puts his pencil down. “What’s there to talk about? Man, I... Jess is dead, dads in the wind, we got no leads on the thing that killed mom. It all just feels a little... hopeless.”

“Holding onto the past isn’t going to chance any of that.”

Sam looks up, finally. “How did you-“

“I’ve been looking out for you my whole life, haven’t I?” Sam shrugs. “I know you, Sammy. And this,” He gestures to the spread of various law books on the table, most from the library, if he were to guess. “Isn’t helping. If anything, it’s just setting you back.”

“I only do this when it’s quiet and there’s no lore to dig into, I swear.”

“That’s not the point.” Deans eyes go over pretty much everything in the room that isn’t Sam. He isn’t sure how much longer he’ll be able to talk if he sees how drained his brother looks. “All I’m sayin’, focusing on the past never goes well, trust me.”

“I just...” Sam takes a deep breath before continuing. “What if it feels like this forever? I mean, I’ve lost people before, we both have, but this, this feels different.”

“It won’t,” Dean says confidently. But deep down, he knows how this shit is. But deep down, he knows how this shit is. He didn’t even know Jess but her going out the same way their mom did has gotta be awful for Sam.

“I loved her, man. I still do,” Sam says and suddenly Dean feels even worse for the kid. “Y’know, I was gonna propose. I was just waiting for the right time.”

“Christ, Sammy, I’m so sorry.” 

“Yeah,” Sam sighs. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank u for reading. My two brain cells appreciate any and all attention. I also did not read this over so sorry for all the mistakes I most definitely made.


End file.
